Healthy Archuleta, a local non-profit in Archuleta County also known as the FSFE/Food Coalition, continues to celebrate the local food heroes that make up the food system in Archuleta County and the surrounding southwest region. These individuals uniquely contribute to the community’s vision for a sustainable, health promoting, and equitable local food system so that everyone has access to affordable nutritious foods.
The effort to capture the profiles of these integral community members was initiated as part of the Archuleta Food System Summit that took place April 9, 2022.
Today we would like to feature Charles MacDonald of Meander Riverside Eatery who shared this narrative with us:
“My name is Charles MacDonald. I am the Chef owner of Meander Riverside Eatery and I have been cooking professionally for almost 20 years now. Meander is a new local food concept restaurant in Pagosa Springs whose aim is to create a seasonally-driven menu, inspired by locally sourced ingredients.”
“Our menu highlights local and seasonal products, sourced from both Pagosa Springs and neighboring farmers and artisans. My philosophy and approach to food is to build relationships with as many local producers as the community has to offer and allow locally sourced ingredients, along with seasonality, to influence the overall direction of the menu.”
“In our eyes, farmers and growers are the true champions of the food industry. Like I always tell my staff, our job is to ‘find the best products we can and do everything we can to not mess them up!’ It is this same passion that I hope to bring to Pagosa Springs. To build mutually beneficial relationships between growers, chefs, and ultimately our guests at the restaurant. Through the pioneering of these relationships and our utilization of local produce in the restaurant, we hope to bolster the local growing community, and advance the quality, quantity, and availability of fresh local produce.”
For questions about our local food system, please contact Healthy Archuleta at fsfearchuleta@gmail.org or 401-371-3227.
To donate to support the work of Healthy Archuleta dba FSFE-Food Coalition please visit our website.
Rose Chavez is Executive Director for Archuleta Seniors, Inc. and Public Health Consultant at Archuleta Food System/Food Equity Coalition.